Varying your approach to weight loss

Lisa met her goal of losing 100 pounds by her 40th birthday, but the struggle continues. Click through to read about losing the first 100 pounds or click on the links below to read about the new challenges.More >>

Lisa met her goal of losing 100 pounds by her 40th birthday, but the struggle continues. Click through to read about losing the first 100 pounds or click on the links below to read about the new challenges.More >>

I tried writing in this space about a month ago and got three paragraphs into it before I gave up. I just feel like I'm saying the same things over and over and not making any real changes that stick. But all I can do is try again and keep trying until I get out of this rut.More >>

10/20/10

I've reset my "Get Back on Track!" month to start today. In wanting to synch up with a calendar month, I probably didn't think things through as well as I should have in planning to be very strict with my diet when I had a bunch of special occasions coming up.More >>

In case you haven't heard because you are under a rock, Kylie Jenner announced that she was pregnant today. The father is Travis Scott, who Jenner has been dating since April, and the baby is due in February

In case you haven't heard because you are under a rock, Kylie Jenner announced that she was pregnant today. The father is Travis Scott, who Jenner has been dating since April, and the baby is due in February

I'm starting to feel a bit like a broken record... "this is hard"… "I'm struggling"… "I'm going to be a little easier on myself for awhile"… "this week will be better"… etc.

Oh well. Moving on! My friend Christine always says "fake it ‘til you make it" and I figure if I keep starting my weeks off right, eventually the amount of time I'm successful will start getting longer and then I'll finally really be back on track.

I gained a pound for this week's weigh-in, which is actually a relief as I had definitely gained more than that on my trip to Las Vegas. I was honestly thrilled to almost get back to my pre-vacation weight.

I also made a pretty big decision this week – I'm switching diet programs.

I love Weight Watchers and really believe in it, but I also feel like I'm in a rut after 22 months and I think shaking things up might be just the thing to re-engage me.

I had had some success with eDiets in the past, so I decided to give them a shot again. A few of the things I like about eDiets:

The ability to generate and print a shopping list based on the specific choices in your meal plan

The simple recipes included as choices in your meal plan

The variety of available meal plans

What seems like a slightly more holistic approach than Weight Watchers – I like being able to track and evaluate choices based on protein and calories and other nutrients instead of just Points values

I had a little bit of difficulty signing up on the website and wasn't able to sort things out entirely to my liking with their Customer Service representative, but I'm hoping that that was an exception as far as experience and not the rule.

Last week's goals:

1) Work out at least 3 times while I'm away

2) Continue to track all my food while on vacation

3) Choose one nice dinner with my family to have a glass of wine, but no drinking on vacation beyond that

4) Sleep for 8 hours a night while on vacation (I may not go to bed by midnight, but I can sleep in!)

5) We'll be staying in a timeshare with a kitchen, so I want to eat breakfast every day and lunch at least half the days in the room.

How did I do:

1) I actually went to the gym 4 times and went hiking outside on the 5th day!

2) Unfortunately, I did not really stick to tracking my foods at all – chalk it up to vacation laziness (and probably not wanting to own up to what I was eating)

3) It didn't really work out to have a drink at one special dinner, but I did keep drinking to a minimum – champagne at one brunch, a cocktail at one dinner, and a few sips of other people's drinks during the week.

4) I don't know that I slept 8 hours every night, but I did not set an alarm and let myself get as much sleep as my body seemed to want. I know that one night I even slept 10 hours!

5) My mother cooked me an egg for breakfast every single day! We didn't really have three meals a day, so several of our lunches were eaten outside of the room – but on those days we didn't really have dinner, just a snack back in the room.

This week's goals:

1) Get back to tracking all my food – good and bad.

2) Really plan ahead for *next* week's meal plan – including grocery shopping with the printable list before the start of the week (my week always starts on Wednesday).

3) I have 6 exercise classes written into my datebook for the next week – I want to attend at least 4 of them.

4) Be better about my water intake – at least 64 ounces a day (not including soda)

5) Get rid of all the "trigger" foods in my apartment -- and *not* by eating them!

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